China's Creation Of Deadly Super-Flu Could Be A Justifiable Defensive Move

The world of biological warfare is a nasty one, that much is for
sure.

Even though most major nations swore off such warfare decades
ago, defending against disease (natural, or weaponized) may have
been China's motivation for developing potentially cataclysmic
strains of influenza.

But it's possible that China is simply trying to protect itself
from pandemic-causing diseases — whether natural or man-made. By
developing the virus, they believe they can prepare vaccines and
treatments to defend against it.

Others believe different: “The virological basis of
this work is not strong. It is of no use for vaccine development
and the benefit in terms of surveillance for new flu viruses is
oversold,” Professor
Wain-Hobson, an expert in virology, told The Independent.

There's definitely an undercurrent of fear that China would be
very vulnerable to a bio-attack. Following the most recent
outbreak of influenza in China, a top-level Chinese Air Force
officer outright
accused the U.S. of using biological weapons — of essentially
planting the virus in China.

Thought is as infectious as disease: it's probable this officer
isn't the only one thinking of bio weapons. Government officials
are well aware how easily an infectious disease could devastate
China, even if it is of natural origins.

Due in part to a government regulation free environment, and in
part to very dense population centers, the spread of infectious
disease has become a growing concern for Chinese authorities.

Pile on to these weaknesses the fledgling establishment of
factors that contribute to vast population mobility — high speed
trains, manufacturing jobs — and the country becomes particularly
weakened against infectious disease.

A
report out of the Center For Strategic and International
Studies in March 2009 summed it up well:

In earlier eras, when China's population was largely stationary
and problems related to sanitation were less prevalent and more
localized, containment of spreading diseases could be more easily
achieved. No More. These days, Chinese are more mobile and their
environment is more hazardous. This is an increasingly
target-rich environment for infectious diseases.

The CSIS study did say that China's bets with medical development
could go one of two ways: If they're successful, they can "short
circuit and international spread of disease" and also contribute
to the global health care system.

But “the record of containment in labs like this is not
reassuring. They are taking it upon themselves to create
human-to-human transmission of very dangerous viruses. It’s
appallingly irresponsible,” Lord May of
Oxford told The Independent.

If they lose the bet, the CSIS report says the world will
"almost certainly" see "new strains of disease."

Playing with fire, yes, but then again, fire was itself a
revolution for man thousands of years ago.